What's your ideal number of sessions per adventure?

When it comes to pacing out your Campaign Plotline, you can get a rough estimate by how long it takes you to complete adventures.

If you run episodic then you could fit dozens of adventures into a real world year. If you're like me and take about 3-4 sessions per adventure, and you play monthly, it could take years to finish a complete multi-adventure campaign.

 

As I selected the less useful (?) other I'd best comment! I've been fortunate enough to run mostly long haul games, current Monday game is close to 40 sessions, my 2 year campaign is on hiatus thanks to the Covid. I've been rolling each session into the next with something akin to loopy planning so things tend to blur into one as opposed to running a series of specific adventures. Definitely more open world with factions and plots ongoing. I have enjoyed one shots and convention games but that's different to the usual weekly games I tend to run. For me I suppose the answer is as long as it takes before the PC actions take us somewhere new.

 

I don't have a 'preferred'. In the past I've played a bit of DDAL so there's that. Recently completed a module in 20 mostly weekly sessions. I could have dragged it out but one of the players was moving overseas. I'm planning a campaign that will be a little bit Deltora Quest style - 7 items to beat the BBEG, so I expect that to go a lot longer. Also a new system (using Genesys), so we'll see if that impacts it.

 

I have to admit, this very question is one of the reasons I'm here. My current campaign has a clear overarching story (well, it's clear to me... and the players are meant to discover it as they go), but I want the chunks in between to feel more like defined adventures to the players. To me, they can feel like discrete adventures, in that I have story beats that are meant to be uncovered in conjunction with gameplay milestones (e.g. beat the local threat, learn secrets that make the final goal clearer, level up), but they don't always seem to FEEL quite like this when in play. What I really want to get better at is creating that rise and fall of tension, to the point where there are very clear moments of reflection and regrouping. We have a lot of character-defining moments happen in high-tension moments, but I want to create equal space for those moments to happen when there is room to breathe. So, in other words, I'm not totally sure how many sessions a single adventure lasts, because they can sometimes seem to bleed into each other, and I want to create more definition.

 

So, in other words, I'm not totally sure how many sessions a single adventure lasts, because they can sometimes seem to bleed into each other, and I want to create more definition.

This, for sure. I have lots of story plot ideas and I'm trying to react to player actions, but I think I throw a bit too much at the players. I know I try and weave something in for all the players and sometimes its a bit muddled,

 

What I really want to get better at is creating that rise and fall of tension, to the point where there are very clear moments of reflection and regrouping.

Hey @ErikaHLX, the Plot Module I just posted in the Adventure Building Game Plan can help a lot with this. Especially the last lessons that dig into 5 Room Dungeons, 3 Step Plans, and Milestones.